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Part 15—1095-1453 C.E.—Resorting to the SwordAwake!—1989 | August 8
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At Swords’ Points
In 1095 Pope Urban II called on European Catholics to take up the literal sword. Islam was to be deposed from the holy lands of the Middle East to which Christendom claimed exclusive rights.
The idea of a “just” war was not new. For example, it had been invoked in the fight against Muslims in Spain and Sicily. And at least a decade before Urban’s appeal, says Karlfried Froehlich of Princeton Theological Seminary, Pope Gregory VII “envisaged a militia Christi for the fight against all enemies of God and thought already of sending an army to the East.”
Urban’s action was partially in response to a request for help from Byzantine emperor Alexius. But since relations between the Eastern and the Western parts of Christendom seemed to be improving, the pope may also have been motivated by the possibility this offered of reuniting the bickering sister churches. At any rate, he convoked the Council of Clermont, which declared that those willing to engage in this “holy” undertaking were to be granted a plenary indulgence (the remission of all penance for sin). The response was unexpectedly positive. “Deus volt” (“God wills it”) became a rallying cry in East and West.
A series of military expeditions began that covered the better part of two centuries. (See box on page 24.) At first the Muslims thought the intruders were Byzantines. But after realizing their true origin, they called them Franks, the Germanic people from whom France later got its name. To meet the challenge of these European “barbarians,” sentiment grew among the Muslims for a jihad, a holy war or struggle.
British professor Desmond Stewart points out: “For every scholar or merchant who planted the seeds of Islamic civilization by precept and example, there was a soldier for whom Islam was a call to battle.” By the second half of the 12th century, Muslim leader Nureddin had built an efficient military force by unifying the Muslims in northern Syria and upper Mesopotamia. So “just as Christians of the Middle Ages took up arms to advance the religion of Christ,” continues Stewart, “Moslems took up arms to advance the religion of the Prophet.”
Of course, advancing the causes of religion was not always the motivating force. The book The Birth of Europe notes that for most Europeans, the Crusades “offered an irresistible opportunity to win fame, or collect booty, or carve out new estates, or rule whole countries—or just to escape the humdrum in glorious adventuring.” Italian merchants also saw an opportunity to establish trading outposts in Eastern Mediterranean lands. But regardless of motive, all were apparently willing to die for their religion—be it in a “just” war of Christendom or in a Muslim jihad.
The Sword Brings Unexpected Results
“Although the Crusades were directed against the Muslims in the East,” says The Encyclopedia of Religion, “the zeal of the Crusaders was exercised on the Jews who lived in the lands from which the Crusaders were recruited, that is, in Europe. A popular motif among the Crusaders was vengeance for the death of Jesus, and the Jews became the first victims. Persecution of the Jews occurred in Rouen in 1096, followed quickly by massacres in Worms, Mainz, and Cologne.” This was but a forerunner of the anti-Semitic spirit of the Holocaust days of Nazi Germany.
The Crusades also increased the East-West tension that had been growing since 1054, when Patriarch Michael Cerularius of the East and Cardinal Humbert of the West mutually excommunicated each other. When the Crusaders replaced the Greek clergymen with Latin bishops in the cities they captured, the East-West schism came down to touch the common folk.
The break between the two churches became complete during the Fourth Crusade when, according to former Anglican Canon of Canterbury Herbert Waddams, Pope Innocent III played “a double game.” On the one hand, the pope was indignant about the sacking of Constantinople. (See box on page 24.) He wrote: “How can the Church of the Greeks be expected to return to devotion to the Apostolic See when it has seen the Latins setting an example of evil and doing the devil’s work so that already, and with good reason, the Greeks hate them worse than dogs.” On the other hand, he readily took advantage of the situation by establishing a Latin kingdom there under a western patriarch.
After two centuries of almost continuous fighting, the Byzantine Empire was so weakened that it was unable to withstand the onslaughts of the Ottoman Turks, who, on May 29, 1453, finally captured Constantinople. The empire had been slashed down not simply by an Islamic sword but by the sword wielded by the empire’s sister church in Rome as well. Divided Christendom had given Islam a convenient base for moving into Europe.
The Swords of Politics and Persecution
The Crusades strengthened the papacy’s position of religious and political leadership. They “gave the popes a controlling hand in European diplomacy,” writes historian John H. Mundy. Before long “the church was Europe’s greatest government . . . , [able] to wield more political power than any other Western government.”
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Part 15—1095-1453 C.E.—Resorting to the SwordAwake!—1989 | August 8
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[Box/Picture on page 24]
Fine Christian Warfare?
Were the Crusades the fine warfare Christians were instructed to wage?—2 Corinthians 10:3, 4; 1 Timothy 1:18.
The First Crusade (1096-99) resulted in the recapture of Jerusalem and the establishment of four Latin states in the East: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli. An authority quoted by historian H. G. Wells says of the capture of Jerusalem: “The slaughter was terrible; the blood of the conquered ran down the streets, until men splashed in blood as they rode. At nightfall, ‘sobbing for excess of joy,’ the crusaders came to the Sepulchre from their treading of the winepress, and put their blood-stained hands together in prayer.”
The Second Crusade (1147-49) was initiated because of the loss of the County of Edessa to Syrian Muslims in 1144; it ended when the Muslims successfully turned back Christendom’s “infidels.”
The Third Crusade (1189-92), undertaken after the Muslims retook Jerusalem, had as one of its leaders Richard I, “the Lionhearted,” of England. It soon “disintegrated,” says The Encyclopedia of Religion, “through attrition, quarreling, and lack of cooperation.”
The Fourth Crusade (1202-4) was diverted for lack of funds from Egypt to Constantinople; material assistance was promised in return for helping enthrone Alexius, an exiled Byzantine pretender to the crown. “The [resulting] pillage of Constantinople by the Crusaders is something that the Orthodox East has never forgotten or forgiven,” says The Encyclopedia of Religion, adding: “If any single date is to be cited for the firm establishment of the schism, the most appropriate—at any rate from a psychological standpoint—is the year 1204.”
The Children’s Crusade (1212) brought death to thousands of German and French children before they even reached their destination.
The Fifth Crusade (1217-21), the last under papal control, failed because of flawed leadership and clergy interference.
The Sixth Crusade (1228-29) was led by Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, whom Pope Gregory IX had previously excommunicated.
The Seventh and Eighth Crusades (1248-54 and 1270-72) were led by Louis IX of France but collapsed after his death in North Africa.
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